MAGA Is Confused About ‘Animal Farm’
MAGA Is Confused About ‘Animal Farm’
MAGA 对《动物庄园》感到困惑
If you read George Orwell’s classic political satire Animal Farm in seventh grade, you probably remember the basic contours of the plot: fed up with human rule, a group of well-intentioned barnyard animals set up their own egalitarian society, with disastrous results. Published in 1945, Animal Farm has a timeless (and, certainly, contemporarily relevant) message: It’s about how the impulse to retain power will always come at the expense of our basic morality.
如果你在七年级时读过乔治·奥威尔的经典政治讽刺小说《动物庄园》，你可能还记得其剧情的基本轮廓：一群心怀善意的农场动物厌倦了人类的统治，建立了自己的平等主义社会，结果却以灾难告终。《动物庄园》出版于 1945 年，其传达的信息具有永恒的（当然，在当代也具有现实意义的）价值：它讲述了维持权力的冲动将如何始终以牺牲我们的基本道德为代价。
That message, however, seems to have been lost on most MAGA influencers assigned the book in middle school (if they even read it at all). After their failure to cancel Barbie or the Wicked movies, conservatives have moved on to a new film adaptation of Animal Farm. (The animated film, which is directed by Lord of the Rings star Andy Serkis, opens May 1).
然而，大多数在中学时期被要求阅读此书的 MAGA（让美国再次伟大）网红们似乎并没有领会这一信息（如果他们真的读过的话）。在未能成功抵制《芭比》或《魔法坏女巫》电影后，保守派将目标转向了《动物庄园》的新电影改编版。（这部由《指环王》明星安迪·瑟金斯执导的动画电影于 5 月 1 日上映。）
The problem, however, is that they’ve failed to reach a consensus on what the actual message of Animal Farm is.
然而问题在于，他们对于《动物庄园》真正想要传达的信息未能达成共识。
The right-wing outrage cycle over a movie featuring Seth Rogen making fart jokes appears to have been sparked by influencers like Emily Saves America and Riley Gaines, who recently posted the trailer for the film. In an April 28 X post, Gaines tweeted that the film was “incredibly well done. They do a perfect job of reminding viewers that Marxism always has and always will fail.” She hashtagged her tweet #AnimalFarmPartner, leading people to assume the post had been the result of a paid partnership between herself and Angel Studios, the Utah-based entertainment company distributing the film, which was also behind the faith-based blockbusters Sound of Freedom and The King of Kings.
围绕这部包含塞斯·罗根放屁笑话的电影，右翼的愤怒循环似乎是由 Emily Saves America 和莱利·盖恩斯（Riley Gaines）等网红引发的，她们最近发布了该片的预告片。在 4 月 28 日的一条 X（原推特）帖子中，盖恩斯写道，这部电影“制作得非常出色。他们完美地提醒了观众，马克思主义过去、现在和将来都注定会失败。”她为推文添加了 #AnimalFarmPartner 的标签，导致人们认为这篇帖子是她与该片发行商——总部位于犹他州的娱乐公司 Angel Studios 之间付费合作的结果。该公司也是宗教题材大片《自由之声》和《万王之王》的幕后推手。
Many on both the left and the right found Gaines’ tweet bizarre, in part because while Animal Farm is certainly a critique of Stalinism, it’s also very clearly not a full-throated endorsement of capitalist ideals. The human owner of the farm is a capitalist, and after he is overthrown, the power-hungry pigs mimic his behaviors, adopting human clothes and profiting off the labor of the other farm animals. The book is ultimately less a condemnation of specific systems of governance than a critique of mankind’s lust for power and blind adherence to ideology.
左翼和右翼的许多人都觉得盖恩斯的推文很奇怪，部分原因在于，虽然《动物庄园》无疑是对斯大林主义的批判，但它显然也不是对资本主义理想的全力背书。农场的人类主人是一名资本家，在他被推翻后，渴望权力的猪模仿了他的行为，穿上人类的衣服，并利用其他农场动物的劳动获利。归根结底，这本书与其说是对特定治理体系的谴责，不如说是对人类权力欲望和盲目坚持意识形态的批判。
In the latest adaptation, Serkis also tweaked the plot by adding a greedy human character (voiced by Glenn Close) who wants to buy the farm, characterizing the film in USA Today as “about authoritarianism and power corrupting and our response to that”—a message that, in theory at least, would certainly resonate with 2026 audiences.
在最新的改编版中，瑟金斯还调整了情节，增加了一个想要买下农场的贪婪人类角色（由格伦·克洛斯配音），他在《今日美国》中将这部电影描述为“关于威权主义、权力腐败以及我们对此的反应”——从理论上讲，这一信息肯定会引起 2026 年观众的共鸣。
It clearly did not, however, resonate with many of Gaines’ ideological bedfellows, who pounced on her for being a Marxist shill. “Promoting communism is the new gay for pay,” right-wing podcaster Tim Pool tweeted. Earlier this month, he posted that he had turned down an offer from Angel Studios to promote the film due to it being “pro-communism and anti-capitalism.” The influencer Peachy Keenan also excoriated the film, calling it “retarded socialist propaganda.”
然而，这显然没有引起盖恩斯许多意识形态盟友的共鸣，他们抨击她是马克思主义的托儿。“宣传共产主义是新的‘为钱出柜’（gay for pay），”右翼播客主持人蒂姆·普尔（Tim Pool）发推文称。本月早些时候，他发帖称自己拒绝了 Angel Studios 推广该片的提议，理由是该片“亲共产主义且反资本主义”。网红 Peachy Keenan 也严厉抨击了这部电影，称其为“弱智的社会主义宣传”。
The inability to reach a consensus on the actual message of the new Animal Farm movie may very well be a reflection of its artistic merits, or lack thereof. (Indeed, the film currently has a 23 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.) But it’s also just generally a reflection of how little media literacy exists in our current information landscape—an issue that, in fairness, is far from specific to the right. Unless the moral messaging of a work of fiction is clearly and consistently telegraphed throughout, there seems to be a complete inability to accept ambiguity or contradiction, or to acknowledge that multiple ideas can be good or bad at the same time.
对于新版《动物庄园》电影的真正信息无法达成共识，很可能反映了其艺术价值的匮乏。（事实上，该片目前在烂番茄上的评分仅为 23%。）但这在总体上也反映了我们当前的资讯环境中媒体素养的匮乏——公平地说，这个问题绝非右翼所独有。除非一部虚构作品的道德信息在始终如一地清晰传达，否则人们似乎完全无法接受模糊性或矛盾性，也无法承认多种观点可能同时存在好坏。
Though middle schoolers might be able to immediately grasp the takeaways from Animal Farm, it says something that high-profile political commentators can’t. In fairness, Orwell himself, who has been claimed by both the right and the left during his lifetime and beyond, probably would have appreciated the confusion his novel has wrought—even if he may not have appreciated Seth Rogen’s fart jokes.
虽然中学生可能能够立即领会《动物庄园》的要点，但高调的政治评论员却做不到，这本身就说明了一些问题。公平地说，奥威尔本人在世时及身后一直被右翼和左翼争相引用，他大概会欣赏他的小说所引发的这种困惑——即使他可能并不欣赏塞斯·罗根的那些放屁笑话。